ROI from File Shares to SharePoint

Got a mail from someone from the field on ROI of going from File Shares to SharePoint.

ROI from FileShares? That’s a tough one. Case Studies, I haven’t seen. I’ll give you some ideas…

Areas to avoid or simply call out when trying to build your ROI case:

Storage costs - Cost per usable GB can't compare.

Personnel to manage (file shares are rarely managed to the degree that they could be considered a "safe" place to store critical information, with open everyone shares, a managed platform can't compare)

The simplest cheapest way to share a file with someone is on a file share (if this is the end of the story). So I’ll save you time by admitting this up front.

Value

Where is the value of a collaboration platform then?

The value is in process improvement, workflows, check in check out, version history, rich context, templates, content types, UI for providing additional context and navigation.

· Simplified broad collaboration Environment for more effective use

· Ability for business to react quickly and increase reactions

· Process acceleration

· Faster problem remediation

· Increased information awareness

· More internal and external resources (way more APIs to leverage the information elsewhere Web Services, RSS, etc…

· efficiency improvements within the company

· Enables enforcement of information management policies with auditing, reporting and rights management

· Enhanced ECM capabilities

· Rich Dashboards and lists beyond files

· Rich Calendars and Gant views

· Rich Templating and reuse

So if sharing a file is cheapest on a file server what’s wrong with that? The file looses context, it will likely never be useful to anyone, it will sit there, consume storage, and likely be duplicated over and over again as peers do the same thing in other folders on other shares. With no policies, expiration, or ownership tracking that copy will remain there forever. This biggest risk? The share is likely shared to “everyone” and the person sharing the file doesn’t even know what the perms/ACLS are on the folder. Even if there was search for finding information, this file sharing mechanism is a liability.

The difference… The SharePoint site where the file is shared has context, has a title, an owner, is indexed, permissions are managed by a delegated administrator who should have received training on how to manage content and delegated rights to his team to share information. The data is indexed and hence discoverable within the team context, and even within the context of the enterprise where it can be leveraged. With a least priviledged access policy or an open policy for documents that should be shared… both work to provide limited liability when enforced and policed. If the context of the site, such as a project or document workspace is no longer useful, the owner can opt in to delete (preferred) or simply allow the site to expire and get archived and deleted (assuming IT has implemented a lifecycle management process for expiring sites or files, something not difficult to create or manage).

Summary:

Share security – security by obscurity (not a viable way to manage data)

Context is lost very quickly and only has one way… folders to provide any context

Hard costs- hard disk space is simply cheaper for file servers than for SQL servers GB of DB space vs. file on file system, although disk space can be reclaimed on either platform through process, ownership and administrator is easier to determine on a site collection than a folder which really has a creator, but no owner metadata retained on the object.

Soft costs- Process improvement, easier to administer via self service, easier to enforce meta data capture around creation of objects, and a number of things as detailed above.

This does not assume that all files are created equal and that all shares can be replaced by sites. What it does suggest is that User file sharing of typical information worker scenarios 99.5% of the time can be shared via sites. The other .5% of instances (not equal to disk consumed) should not be handled by end user file shares, but via Business Unit/Department owned shares paid for and owned by the business unit… hopefully in a larger DFS tree for context. Without going into all the scenarios, IT would find sharing VPCs to be much easier for instance on a share, but why not have the context of those VPCs in a SharePoint site? This statement is repeatable for N file type that is large or doesn’t fit the storage paradigm of files shared via the web.

My other thoughts on the topic: